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Falcon King Chess. A shortrange variant on an 8x8 board featuring a pair of royal Falcons.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Nov 16, 2007 06:13 PM UTC:
Dear Senorita Simpatica:

Thank you for your kind words. I understated my previous reply, testing the idea that 'a soft answer turneth away wrath'. Having a debate is fine, but I'm generally inclined to avoid fights [in spite of past actions]. So I softpedal some of my replies. 

You asked about 'excess baggage' in my design, and said you didn't see anything other than a game that looked well-balanced. Now, to explain that will take a bit of doing [and I tend to be long-winded ;-) ] but I'll try to do a short, concise job of it. 

The game tests:
1 a pair of new pieces: bishopy and rookish, [yes, the names are a cry for help, but accurate as names] that have a 2-square leaping component
2 another piece I've never used before, the falcon, in 2 roles: as queen [where it is rather weak], and as royal pair, with royal pair bringing in the potential for a 'slippery king' problem
3 a most unusual knight substitute, much stronger than the FIDE knight, that brings an aditional problem when coupled with #2, above: the power in the game shifts, with queens and knights trading places. 

The bent hero is the most powerful piece in the game; each side has a pair, replacing the knights. The falcon, on the other hand, can [for this game at least] be considered a knight-analog. This shift in power is radical, could be disconcerting to many [no big deal, we all should be more flexible :-) ] and hasn't been playtested. 

It's part of the designer's art to provide games that are balanced, or at least look balanced. This looks pretty good to me, too, or I wouldn't have put it up. But there are so many unknowns going on at the same time in this game that I can't tell if attack, defense, or checkmate is too easy, too hard, or what. It needs playtesting. A give-away is that I provide the same game with 2 different kings; that often indicates I'm unsure about the best way. But that's why it's labelled an experimental game, and that's why its rules are on the wiki, with my other experimental games that need testing.